This invention relates generally to turbomachinery, and specifically to stator vanes for the compressor, turbine or fan section of a gas turbine engine. In particular, the invention concerns a stator airfoil with structural features.
Gas turbine engines provide reliable, efficient power for a wide range of applications, including aviation and industrial power generation. The turbine engine is built around a power core made up of a compressor, combustor and turbine, arranged in flow series with an upstream inlet and downstream exhaust.
The compressor compresses air from the inlet, which is mixed with fuel in the combustor and ignited to generate hot combustion gas. The turbine extracts energy from the expanding combustion gas, and drives the compressor via a common shaft. Energy is delivered in the form of rotational energy in the shaft, reactive thrust from the exhaust, or both.
Small-scale gas turbines generally utilize a one-spool design, with co-rotating compressor and turbine sections. Larger-scale combustion turbines, jet engines and industrial gas turbines (IGTs) are typically arranged into a number of coaxially nested spools, which operate at different pressures and temperatures, and rotate at different speeds.
The individual compressor and turbine sections in each spool are subdivided into a number of stages, which are formed of alternating rows of rotor blade and stator vane airfoils. The airfoils are shaped to turn, accelerate and compress the working fluid flow, and to generate lift for conversion to rotational energy in the turbine.
Aviation applications include turbojet, turbofan, turboprop and turboshaft configurations. Turbojets are an older design, in which thrust is generated primarily from the exhaust. In turbofan and turboprop engines, the typical configurations for modern fixed-wing aircraft, the low pressure spool is coupled to a propulsion fan or propeller. Turboshaft engines are used on rotary-wing aircraft, including helicopters.
In turbofan engines, the fan rotor typically operates as a first stage compressor, or as the pre-compressor stage for a low-pressure compressor or booster module. This design poses additional structural constraints on the engine, because the fan is coupled to both the core and bypass flowpaths, and the fan duct must be rigidly supported from the power core.